Life is a winding and troubled road, switch back after switch back.

The point of biblical stories is to help us feel in our bones (not just know in our heads) that God is for us in all these strange turns.

The life of the godly is not a straight line to glory it’s more like a dark and seemingly unknown trail through the mountains. There are rock slides and slippery curves and hairpin turns that make you go backward in order to go forward.

But along this hazardous twisted road that doesn’t let you see very far ahead, you may even feel like you’ve been lead to the edge of a cliff, God gives us encouragement and hope that all the perplexing turns in our lives are going somewhere good.

Often when we think God is farthest from us and has even turned against us, the truth is that he is laying a foundation for greater happiness in our lives.

God is plotting for our joy. He is plotting the course and managing the troubles with far-reaching purposes for our good and for the glory of Jesus Christ. That is a sweet and bitter providence.

-John Piper (Read by John Piper on the album, The Joy Eternal. Also, I believe the original and slightly different version is available in the book, A Sweet and Bitter Providence: Sex, Race, and the Sovereignty of God